Do you know what legacy you are leaving to the next generation? This is the question Alex Mandossian asks each of his followers. Using a story Zig Ziglar used to tell about three men cutting stone, Alex integrates it into the three types of purpose – a daily purpose, a life purpose, and a legacy purpose. He talks about the four parts of the process of manifestation and two key insights into becoming a highly skilled ethical influencer. He also shares the “five why” deep dive method of discovering your purpose and legacy.

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The weekly blog devoted to coaches, consultants, and even service professionals who want to get more premium clients. Those are high-ticket clients, higher-end clients, but they don’t enjoy the selling process. Is that you? We believe that seeding through storytelling is the new selling and no matter what you believe, you’ll agree that nothing happens in your business until something is sold. Why shy away from it? It doesn’t matter what business you’re in.

If you hate to sell, then this blog is for you. After you read a few episodes, you’ll find out that selling can be fun. That’s as long as you know what to say when to say it and how to say it. If that’s what you’ve been looking for, then you’re in the right place because this blog teaches you not just handling but obliterating the objections that typically lead to personal rejection. If that sounds interesting to you, then all you need to do is lean forward and read carefully.

Although ethical influence is central to our discussions, you and I will also explore other fascinating and important topics such as growing your relationship capital, branding strategies, finding great JV partners, team-building, outsourcing principles, client acquisition tactics, repurposing strategies, million-dollar habits, even ninja marketing tips and that’s naming a few. In this episode, you’ll learn three key insights, which I believe are critical to making you a highly skilled ethical influencer.

In this episode, you’ll discover number one, why your business legacy is a decision you make while you’re still living. Number two, you’ll learn why your legacy is about your purpose, not about your intention or strategy. Number three, you’ll learn how to discover your legacy by taking a five-why deep dive. Lean in and read carefully because this episode could have a significant impact on how you can win the hearts of others with total and absolute certainty.

If English is your second language and over half of our readers are outside of North America, then I hope you read this and all the other episodes, not just once, twice, but three times because nothing empowers the literacy and even the fluency of learning a new language than the art and science of ethical influence.

The Three Stonecutters

Zig Ziglar was an amazing thought leader and his legacy lives on with his family, with his son Tom, who I’ve interviewed. Zig used to tell a story about three men cutting stone. The event took place several 100 years ago and there was a passerby, and he looked at the first man. As that first man was chipping away at the stone, he said, “What are you doing?” The first man responded, “I’m cutting stone.”

He went to the second man doing the same thing on his knees with a pick and a hammer and chipping away at the stone. He said, “What are you doing?” The second man’s response was, “I’m earning a living.” He went to the third man and the third man was right next to the second man as well as the first man and said, “Sir, what are you doing?” He was doing the same thing, but the third man responded with, “I’m building a cathedral.”

Cutting stone, earning a living, or building a cathedral. Which of those three responses is a legacy response? I know legacy isn’t something you’re thinking of, especially if you’re in deep debt or maybe it’s difficult for you to pay bills. Maybe have family problems, marketing problems, sales problems or whatever problems. We all have problems, but as far as the legacy is concerned, it was that third man cutting the stone.

[bctt tweet=”Your business legacy is a decision you make while you’re still living. It brings more purpose to your life.” username=”AlexMandossian”]

His response, “I’m building a cathedral.” His children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, and you can go on for many generations. If that cathedral was a cathedral that would be standing for many hundreds of years, that was that third man’s legacy. Remember that response. You’re cutting stone, you’re making a living or you’re building a cathedral and the cathedral is the legacy answer. Why your business legacy is a decision?

The decision means to cut off other alternatives, cut off other options. That’s a decision you make while you’re still living. It brings more purpose to your life. I believe there are three types of purpose and it has an impact on the way you enroll others and the way you ethically influence others. For lack of a better term, the way you sell others. Another daily purpose could be you’re earning a living. There’s a life purpose.

 The “Five Why” Method

The life purpose is you’re making sure that your children or your families are taken care of and then there’s a legacy purpose. The legacy purpose is what happens with future generations. If you don’t have any kids, then what happens with people who live beyond your passing, beyond your death? An easy way to figure out your legacy purpose, and I’ve done this for many years, is to discover your five-why deep dive.

What’s the five-why deep dive? The why question is about purpose. The how question is about strategy. The what question is about intention. In previous episodes, I’ve talked about intention, purpose, and strategy. The intention is what you want to do. The purpose is why you want to do it. The strategy is how you want to do it. Many times it’s not about what you want, but how it’s done. Many people get locked into the strategy.

As another thought leader besides Zig Ziglar and the two men knew each other. One other thought leader said the bigger the why, the easier the how. The five-why exercise, which I’ve done many years, gets at the seed cause of why you do what you do. Seed cause is different than the root cause. Look at the root cause as your life purpose. Look at seed cause as legacy purpose.

There are many people who deal with the legal ramifications and parameters of passing wealth over time. We’re in the greatest wealth transfer in recorded history because the Baby Boomers are slowly passing onward. Is that wealth could it be transferred? Is the state, the nation, the country or the organization that they’re involved with will they be dipping into that wealth that was created by that human being? An estate planner can do that for you.

This is not a legal blog, but when it comes to seed cause, the seed flops into the root and disappears. Seeds look alike. Roots look alike as well but then, is it a pear tree? Is it an apple tree? What kind of tree is it? Is it an apricot tree? When it comes to seed cause we want to go deep. If you ask yourself, “Why do I want to do this?” That’s why number one. Why is that important? That’s why number two. Why is that important? That’s three. Why is that important? That’s four.

Ultimately why is all of that important and that fifth why. It generally takes 4 to 5 whys. You will get to the seed cause or the legacy purpose of why you do what you do. The bigger the why the easier the how. Who has left legacies over the years? Many people think legacy has a positive impact. I believe legacy is about transferring memory about something. It’s been said that history is written by those who won the wars. People who lost the wars, they were dead on the battlefield, so they couldn’t write.

Business Legacy: Legacy is not a matter of positive or negative. It’s a matter of memory, of having that person’s doings carried on.

There’s a confirmation bias with history and a lot of history is fictional, I believe. I don’t know what you believe, but people who’ve left legacies, people who have been remembered over the years, long after their death are people like Mother Teresa of Calcutta or John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Buddha, or Muhammad. Also, Jesus, Moses, George Washington, the United States First President, Winston Churchill.

There are many legacies left by people who didn’t advance the human condition. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini come to mind. To me, legacy is not a matter of positive or negative. It’s a matter of memory. It’s in a matter of having that person’s doings carried on. Either they’re never done again, as in the case of Hitler, or they’ve done again, such as Mother Teresa. I believe that your legacy, if you start thinking about it, is not about what your intention is.

It’s not about what you want in this lifetime. It’s not about the strategy that you have in your lifetime. If you make it beyond your lifetime, you make it seven generations deep, whether or not you have offspring if you make it 100 years, will you be remembered for something? Will there be something in the form of a monument or a work of art or a work of literature or a podcast or anything where you can be remembered? That’s important because most people are forgotten within six months to one year.

It’s true. It’s sad, but when you’re living, it’s easy to make memories, but once you pass on that memory is only forced and advanced through and remembered through your human doings. You’re a human being, but you’re remembered and your legacy is by your human doings. One word about commitment, it’s impossible to leave any legacy without your commitment to purpose. This is where sales come in. Seeding through storytelling is the new selling, which is the mantra of this show.

The reason it’s titled All Selling Aside because I only masqueraded as being a blog for those who hate to sell to get them more involved and engaged in ethical influence because influence is important. Everyone I named, Mother Theresa, JFK, MLK, Gandhi, Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus, Moses, Washington, Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, they all had influence. Not all of it was ethical.

Unless you are committed to committing to your not only life’s purpose but your legacy purpose, then you will live on beyond your years on earth. Whether that’s Amelia Earhart or Charles Lindbergh, both of them were aviators. They were pioneers in aviation, if it was Albert Einstein or Niels Bohr in physics or Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla with innovations and electricity.

They are remembered because they had such a deep purpose while they were living and they made a decision about that purpose, not just their intention or strategy, but their big why. Probably their fifth why then they’re remembered. If you fail to find your legacy purpose, you will be forgotten in probably less than a year. In most cases, less than five years. I can remember good friends of mine, I can remember one who was probably the most well-known digital marketer of his day.

He died in a car crash and I remember him from time-to-time. I had dinner with him several times. He was a Canadian, but he’s not talked about anymore. It’s a shame because he had a huge impact on digital marketing, which I’m a big part of. He started around the time that I did in 1995 that’s BG, Before Google. That man is Corey Rudl. One cool experiment that you could do to overcome this deathly fear of objections and rejection.

[bctt tweet=”If you fail to find your legacy and purpose, you will be forgotten.” username=”AlexMandossian”]

Whenever you’re enrolling someone to do what you want them to do in your business, assuming it’s ethical, is to think about what you want to be written in your obituary. That’s a common exercise many personal development instructors have done, but what would you want your obituary to say in the way you want to be remembered? Here’s the Alexism for this episode. This is episode number 55. Can you believe it?

It’s been a year since I started and I have had a lot of fun with this. I hope you have fun reading. I hope you refer it to friends and colleagues because it’s there as a public service. The Alexism is this, business leaders who know but don’t do, still don’t know. I have taken that from a Chinese proverb. Business leaders, if you know, but don’t do it, then you still don’t know and that is about your legacy purpose. The process of manifestation anyway you’ll look at it is in four different parts.

Number one, intention. What is it that you want? What is your mission? The what that’s about your head. That’s the thinking part. Number two, your purpose. Why do you want it and not just the surface why, but the fifth why, that legacy purpose? Number three, strategy. How are you going to get it? A strategy to make $1 million is different than a strategy to make $3 million. A strategy to make $3 million is different than $10 million.

You’ll require different staff. Number four, execution. Who will be responsible for that strategy? Who’s the champion to that strategy and when is it due? Those are the two elements of execution. Those CEOs who don’t execute get fired, whether it’s a Fortune 500 company, Fortune 100 company or a company doing less than $1 million. The massage therapist who wants to make $1 million a year cannot do it with the same strategy it takes for her or him to do $100,000 a year.

They can probably do a $100,000 a year if they’re doing massage therapy on their own with their own hands. They could probably net $100,000 a year. I know several massage therapists who do at the high end. However, to make a $1 million, you’d have to do over 14,000 massages and that’s if you’re netting about $80 or $90 per massage, and 14,000 plus massages or over 70 massages a day.

It wouldn’t be possible because most massage therapists can do 5 or maybe 6 and that’s pushing it and they certainly don’t do it seven days a week. You’ve got to be in the business of massage and your how changes. The intention of making a $1 million and your purpose of why you want to make $1 million is different.

If you have a methodology, whether it’s a massage or yoga or running a coffee shop or whatever it is that you do, the important thing is to have a big enough why, that fifth why that goes deep. That way you’ve made your decision about your legacy while you’re still living and you know that it’s about your purpose, not about your intention or strategy because you’ve gone down to that fifth why.

You won’t have a legacy if your purpose is the same at the first why versus the fifth why, and I want you to let that sink in. Here’s a review of the insights you and I both discovered in this 55th episode. I want you to apply them. Will you do that for me? This is for you, not for me. I do this. I want you to do it and let’s expand and advance together because you deserve starting your legacy.

Business Legacy: You won’t have a legacy if your purpose is the same at the first why versus the fifth why.

The first thing you learned is why your business legacy is a decision you make while you’re still living. Number two, you learn why your legacy is about your purpose, not about your intention or strategy, or even the execution of that strategy. Finally, you learn how to discover your legacy purpose by going through the five-why deep dive.

California Redwoods And Seed Causes

What does that fifth why at the seed level, not even at the root level, but before the seed flops into the root? Many seeds don’t. A redwood tree, we have many redwoods here in California. A redwood tree produces several million seeds each year and those several million seeds are tiny that together they add up to about 8 or 9 pounds. If you put them in a bag, yet 98% of them are not viable. Less than 2% take root and some of them grow.

Some of them in some parts of California have been living since the time of Christ. Since the time of Buddha, 2,000, 2,500 years. I don’t know if they’ve been as old as Moses about 3,000 years, but they get tall and some of them you can drive a car through them, such as in Yosemite National Park. Why do I say that? It is because everything big was once small and it starts at the seed level. Remember, these insights will only work for you if you work them and please make sure that you execute.

That means do what you’ve learned in this episode. If you do, I believe your future will be bigger. Your future will be brighter, and perhaps most importantly, your future is created on your terms because it’s your life and your legacy. Speaking of reviews, if you’ve already done a review on iTunes, if you’ve already written a review for me, then thank you.

If that’s the case, I want you to write down your biggest takeaway or your a-ha moment you had from this episode on an index card and hold on to it. I say that at the end of each episode. If you have not given me a review, then the moment this episode ends, I’d love you to go. I want you to go and I hope you do it for yourself so you make it a declaration. If you notice, I’m trying to influence you ethically. It’s no secret.

I want you to go to AllSellingAside.com/iTunes and write your biggest a-ha in the review section. Don’t review the show. Don’t give me what you think about the show. Give me a-ha moment for this episode in the review section. iTunes doesn’t call it a-ha moment or a big takeaway. It says reviews but I want to change that so that it’s specific and it’s to the point. It’s your declaration. It will mean much to me.

Once you do that, iTunes asks you to rate this episode and I hope I’ve earned five stars from you because this is a relationship that we build even though you and I have possibly never met. Will you do that for me? It’s important. It’ll take three minutes out of your day. The reason I’m asking is that it gets me up in the ranks through word of mouse and word of mouth and it’ll allow this show to go to others who hate to sell or are afraid to sell.

I approach selling from a completely different point of view. There are many sales trainers. Your most valuable lesson from this episode at AllSellingAside.com/iTunes. If you don’t think I’ve earned five stars from this episode, go to another episode, read it, and when you believe I’ve earned stars, give me the takeaway from that episode. One final gift to give you the honor of this 55th episode is the complimentary access I mentioned at the beginning.

[bctt tweet=”Everything big was once small. It starts at the seed level. ” username=”AlexMandossian”]

It’s a four-part video eCourse that teaches you how to number one, identify your market. Number two, create your message and number three, capitalize that means to make money. Capitalize on the most lucrative media sources available to you. Although my mother still has no idea what I do, I hope you do. I hope our paths cross again, which is the show dedicated to making ethical influence within your reach.

Most importantly, to bring more certainty into your business and your personal life. Do whatever it takes to join me because our topic is going to be the most lucrative business skill. What’s the world’s most lucrative skill that you can think of? I’m going to share that with you and I encourage you to invite a friend or bring a colleague.

Bring him to this episode. Let them read it and bite a study friend because it’s a lot more fun to study with someone else, especially if they hold you accountable. Back in the days of the Roman senators, when they used to stand up, they were accounted for the ability to be accounted and that means you showed up and you’re doing the work.

I can’t wait to connect with you and I hope you’re getting to know me and trust this process. It’ll be a super fun episode and I want you to join us with your study friend because this is a movement. It’s not a marketing campaign or training that we’re doing. I will speak to you again.

Important Links:

• Zig Ziglar
• AllSellingAside.com/iTunes